Farm life -- United States; Girls -- United States
A wood-brown bead is given for Camp Craft. Here there are tent craft,
wood craft, fire lore, camp cookery, weather lore, camp packing, and all
kinds of knot tying. Added to this is an attractive group called Indian
craft. Under this head the member may win a wood-brown bead if she knows
six Indian legends or twenty-five signs of the Indian sign language, or
six blazes. Is there any one who does not know what the word "blaze"
means? It is the mark you cut on the tree with your hatchet by which
when you are on the trail you may tell your way back home again. The
applicant for this brown bead honor may know three Indian ways of
testing the eyesight, or how to make a totem, an Indian bed, an Indian
tepee, or a bead band eight inches long. Any one of these achievements
wins the wood-brown bead.
Then come the green honors. Here the artist in the young member of the
society has a chance for development. If the girl chooses she may win
this bead by work in clay modeling, or in brass or silver work; in
basketry, wood carving, carpentry, dyeing, leather work, stenciling,
sewing, photography, hat trimming, original designs in embroidering, and
many other kinds of beautiful expression through the arts.
Yellow honors are given for any sort of business positions, earning
certain sums for an accomplishment worthy of the yellow bead, keeping
accurate accounts, saving a definite amount, making budgets for the
family, and so forth.
Then come the red-white-and-blue honors, which includes helping in the
celebration of some historical day, the national birthdays, or some day
connected with the history of the town in which the member lives, like a
pageant or an historical tableau. Knowledge of the customs and laws of
our country come under this head, and service to the community in any
way, helping about keeping the town clean and about making it a better
and more healthful place for all. This bead may be won by a knowledge of
what the great ones of the past have done for the public good, such as
religious leaders, missionaries, educators, great women, statesmen,
scientists. A sketch of the life of that great woman, Harriet Beecher
Stowe, or of that other wonderful woman, Frances E. Willard, would take
this honor; and the ability to repeat from memory a certain number of
verses from the Bible or a number of the world's greatest hymns, would
be equally valued among these achievements.
It would certainly seem as if a girl who could win honor beads enough to
string a necklace for herself might be forgiven for some slight tinge of
vanity. But there is not much excuse for any girl in the land to fail to
be worthy of acceptance in this honorable company, for the requirements
cover so wide a range and the girls of America are so ingenious in
taking hold of new ideas and moreover are already so filled with
activities in all the realms touched by these inspiring suggestions,
that the Camp Fire spirit ought to become a household interest in every
State of the Union.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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